


The Effects of Hourai

by Medi_Melancholy



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Depression, Gen, it's not all angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24745009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medi_Melancholy/pseuds/Medi_Melancholy
Summary: Kaguya Houraisan knows Fujiwara no Mokou better than anybody, and something's not right. There's only one thing for her to do: figure out what it is, and help get everything back on track.This work deals with depression. Please don't read if that sort of content will make you uncomfortable. Furthermore, there is some swearing.
Relationships: Fujiwara no Mokou & Houraisan Kaguya
Kudos: 22





	The Effects of Hourai

“It’s been nearly two months since I’ve seen her.”

Kaguya Houraisan looked out a window in one of the countless chambers of Eientei at the bamboo forest that stretched on for several yojana in each direction around the mansion. Reisen Udongein Inaba was currently in the room as well, not in her traditional role serving the princess, but simply as a friend and sounding board. 

Reisen followed the princess’s eyes, but found nothing off or interesting in the forest. “You two have been… ah, killing each other less often recently. Maybe she doesn’t really want revenge on you anymore.”

“This feels different,” the princess said dismissively. “To be frank, I’m not certain you understand her the way I do.”

Reisen wasn’t sure what to say. Kaguya seemed somewhat agitated, but the rabbit couldn’t find any problems with the situation. Maybe she truly didn’t understand the princess’s relationship with Fujiwara no Mokou, but at the very least, the lack of murder of late was a good thing?

Rather than try to insert her opinion, Reisen instead sat in silence, observing the princess she served from the other side of the dimly lit room. Kaguya, too, continued to stare aimlessly out the window.

“I believe I’m going to go see her,” Kaguya announced, “to make certain my fellow immortal is doing alright.”

Reisen knew better than to question the princess’s whims directly, but the sudden declaration had her worried. “Should I let Master Eirin know? After all -”

Kaguya waved her hand to stop Reisen in her tracks. “Do not. Even if she kills or maims me, I can make my way back here just fine. I needn’t a bodyguard or healer to accompany me.”

“Even so…” 

“I will not hear any dissension.” Kaguya moved to leave the room, but stopped in the doorframe to get a few more words in before leaving. “This is a personal matter for me, unrelated to the business of Eientei. If just one person intervenes, I will personally have them pounding mochi ten hours a day for a year.”

Reisen scoffed under her breath at the princess’s almost childish threat, but did not try to counter argue the princess. It was simply a fruitless endeavour, and when it came to matters of the other immortal in particular, Kaguya was immovable as a mountain. The rabbit watched as her liege left the room as her floor-length hair trailed her.

She decided Kaguya was right - Reisen truly did not understand their relationship. She had arrived at Eientei only recently in the grand scope of the house’s history, and similarly only recently entered Kaguya’s life, relatively. While the princess and the human immortal were locked in an eternal dance of death, resurrection, and yet more death, there was a hint of worry in the princess’s tone throughout the conversation. It seemed to Reisen, in her admittedly limited understanding of psychology, that there was some kind of need for the two to continue massacring each other for all eternity - that they were entwined in mutual homicide, and that any interruption in this state of affairs constituted a dire emergency for either side.

So, she wondered idly what the reason was for Mokou, typically impassioned with a venomous hate for the princess, to stop all interaction with her, let alone the violence that usually followed. 

* * *

Fujiwara no Mokou stared at the ceiling of the room. Currently, some sun was trickling in through the open door frame, but it was rather dark otherwise.

Last night, she had crashed on the floor, likely out of sheer exhaustion. Recently, she had been having trouble falling asleep. It was as if her mind just wouldn’t stay quiet for a half-second, to even give her the chance of nodding off. Night after night, she was met with a never-ending stream of thoughts about how many mistakes she’d made, how many sins she’d committed, and how many lives she’d ruined to reach this point in her eternal life.

And, today, she could not help but feel no motivation to do anything. All she could muster was a blank stare at the ceiling. Thankfully, last night’s mental parade of regrets was missing, but so was pretty much everything else. Staring at the wooden ceiling to her little hut, her little isolation from the entire world, she could not find a single feeling, a tiny scrap of drive. 

And so, she continued to stare at the ceiling. At some point, after some indeterminate amount of time had passed, she tried scolding herself; maybe, just maybe, if she held herself accountable for doing nothing all day, she’d stand up and do _anything_ as some sort of penance. Even this proved to be useless, and despite the daylight pouring inside brighter and warmer, the immortal somehow found herself more tired. Was it from the nights of sleeplessness? With the complete lack of activity today, she should have something to run on. And yet, all energy felt drained from her body, and she could not help but fall asleep once again.

* * *

Deftly navigating the labyrinthine thickets of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost with hundreds of years of experience as her compass, Kaguya Houraisan emerged in a small clearing.

It was afternoon, judging by the sun’s height in the sky. After preparing herself a bit for a trek through the forest, namely by changing into a shorter, less formal dress and tying her hair up into a ponytail, some more time had passed than she would have liked, but reaching her destination even at this point in the day was good news. She was mostly clean, too.

In the opposite corner of the opening in the forest was a shabby wooden cabin - the home of Fujiwara no Mokou. Out front, there was a mound of firewood sitting next to a cart of the sort that one would operate a mobile food stand with.

The shack was, to the princess, somewhat adorable in its dingy state. It was a reminder of the simultaneous ingenuity and powerlessness of a human being.

She approached the little house carefully, so as not to arouse sudden suspicion. She did hope that Mokou was actually _here_ \- she wouldn’t know where to begin to look if the human immortal wasn’t.

The door at the front was already wide open, and Kaguya peered in from the edge of the opening.

Inside on the floor was Fujiwara no Mokou. Her sunken eyes were closed on her motionless face, and her sprawled body was gaunt from what looked to be several days of malnutrition.

Kaguya was horrified. It was like looking at a person decaying while still alive… and of course Mokou was still alive. There was no way for her not to be.

The princess felt some level of distress come over her. Perhaps ironic, given the countless times she had killed this woman, but this was different. When Mokou died at Kaguya’s hands, it was bloody with scattered viscera, but it was at least relatively quick, and there was a struggle before that result.

This was not like that at all.

Kaguya had seen people die like this before, in her many years. This was the culmination of a total loss of will, where a fatigue more mental than physical overwhelmed someone to the point where they became a husk, a withered shell of a person.

Beside herself, the princess rushed over and knelt at the side of her fellow immortal, vigorously shaking her awake. Several seconds passed before Mokou’s eyes slowly eked open, and she squinted at the light outlining the figure leaning over her.

After a bit longer, Mokou’s eyes adjusted and determined that it was, in fact, Kaguya Houraisan, her eternal object of vengeance. Here was the one person she hated above all else, the one who had cursed her to deathlessness in the first place.

And yet, in this moment, all Mokou could do was to study the princess’s face for a few seconds before once again closing her eyes and making a grunting sound. 

“What’s going on with you…?” Kaguya said, distraught.

Mokou rolled over to face away from her enemy, and responded in a small, hollow voice, “Nothing.”

“What? Are you serious? You look as if you’ve died and are rotting away!” Now, the princess raised her voice, with indignation tinging the previous ache in her words. She grabbed Mokou by the shoulder and pulled her so she was once again lying on her back, and was met with no resistance. “I know you mislike me. But… oh, why am I still talking like this? I’m _fucking_ _worried_ about you, Mokou. You look like _shit_!”

Mokou, finally, wore some semblance of emotion on her face - a hint of surprise at the usually eloquent princess’s use of profanity. “I…” She in turn looked at the princess’s face once again and was met with a mix of emotions she somehow hadn’t noticed before - despair chief among them. “I’m sorry.”

Somehow, Mokou, just having felt empty, started to notice something in her eyes. It was the wetness of tears.

Kaguya looked on, mouth slowly coming agape, as her eternal rival began to cry. She looked so hurt, so… vulnerable.

The princess found nothing to say, and only one thing she felt she could do. Slowly, she leaned in, and wrapping her arms around Mokou, pulled her into an embrace.

“I can’t know what’s going on, Mokou… but, please, let me help. Let me help.” Kaguya did her best to soothe Mokou, trying to speak in an even, soft voice. Her words were greeted with a weak squeeze from Mokou.

The two continued to hold each other for several seconds, seconds that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Finally, Mokou slowly pulled away wordlessly and wiped her eyes.

Kaguya wanted to choose her words carefully, but found herself struggling to find much. She could not formulate her usual dignified speech for this. “...You’re all skin and bones, Mokou. When was the last time you ate anything?”

“I don’t know,” came the response from Mokou. “I had no appetite.” Still, she was quiet, but her mind seemed to have shaken off a layer of rust from disuse.

“Well, you have to eat. What do you have here?”

Mokou only grunted in response.

The princess sighed. “I’m going to cook something for you.”

“...Holy shit.” Mokou said under her breath, the faintest trace of a smile appearing on her face. Kaguya caught this and did her best to not show any joy. 

Truthfully, she had little idea how to cook, and she knew Mokou was aware of that. But experience be damned, she would do _anything_ to lift Mokou’s spirits. If even the suggestion of her cooking was enough to have an effect, no matter how small… well, Kaguya resolved that she would have to go all the way with this.

“Well? What do you have for me to cook?”

“There’s stuff to make yakitori outside in the cart.”

Kaguya was overjoyed; now, Mokou’s mind seemed to be much more active. But, she still looked like she was down, so Kaguya sought to go even further. If she could get Mokou up and moving around, then…

“Perfect, can you help me look for the items? I hear you’ve been making yakitori for a while, so maybe you could give me some tips.” Kaguya motioned with her head, an easy smile across her face.

Mokou sighed a bit to herself. “...You’ll probably burn the whole ass forest down if I don’t show you how to do it.” She slowly got up, and made her way over to the door next to Kaguya.

The two shuffled over to the yakitori cart out front, and Mokou began to show Kaguya how to make yakitori, reciting from a textbook of years of experience. As the lesson went on, Kaguya tried to sneak looks over to Mokou’s face several times. Every time, she found a slight frown, but not one born from sadness or emptiness, just the characteristic glowering look on Mokou’s face most of the time.

Kaguya was relieved. Thankfully, it seemed Mokou’s mind was being drawn away from the negative state it was in earlier, as it focused on teaching her how to cook. This was going well, as far as the princess was concerned, even though she had made up this whole scenario on the fly, and could only hope it continued as such.

* * *

The two immortals were now seated on the flooring of Mokou’s house, eating yakitori cooked by Kaguya with Mokou as a guide.

Kaguya looked at the dark pieces of chicken on her skewer. “I believe I burnt them.”

Mokou looked up from her own food. “Ain’t much better here, but it was your first go.” The human of the two popped her skewer into her mouth, taking off a chunk of chicken. “Mmfh. The spices are pretty good though. I’d give it a six out of ten.”

“Six out of ten is not nearly good enough for my tastes.” Kaguya eyed the chicken further, squinting at a particularly blackened portion. Then, with a defeated shrug, she put a piece of chicken in her mouth. Mokou watched with a touch of amusement as the princess gave an exaggerated gulp as she evidently had difficulty eating it.

“Ech…” the Lunarian blurted out, sticking out her tongue with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“That’s unladylike,” the human commented.

“Shut it.” Kaguya said, putting down her skewer. “I suppose this just means I’ll have to keep trying.”

Mokou looked surprised. “Oh? You still want to learn how to make them better?”

“Well, yes. I’ve all the time in the world to pick up some skills,” Kaguya said, looking for something to wipe her face off with. “But, more importantly, you feel better now, don’t you?”

There was silence for a few seconds, before Mokou grunted acknowledgingly. “Huh. You’re… you’re right.”

“Good, that’s a relief.” Kaguya seemed to have lost some weight bearing down on her. “Killing each other for all eternity sounds fine and all, but I think we should spare time to do things like this, too. I think it’s good for each of us.”

Mokou didn’t have any immediate response to that. She just closed her eyes, and thought with some disbelief about what had just happened. If she pieced the story together and squinted, it seemed like Kaguya was worried about her and tried to help her clear her mind while hiding it as a cooking lesson. Although the immortal was loath to admit it, Kaguya had just done something very kind, and she was now appearing in a slightly warmer light.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s do this again,” Mokou said, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Well this was my first story in a while and my first posted to AO3 (everything earlier I have on ffnet). Hopefully it wasn't too hard to read, and at least makes sense.


End file.
